I reminded him that he had promised I should see "madame" and the baby. "Could not she share our meal?" He said she was tired and really preferred to rest. Was the excuse diplomatic?
He told me that almost immediately after their marriage (about a year and a half ago, when she was only seventeen), they had "escaped" to Rhodes, and it was only too likely their brief experience of home—such as war had left them—would be once more cruelly interrupted. She, unfortunately, did not speak French, but I could easily read in her large, pathetic, dark eyes the excuses she strove to offer for what would never have struck me as "inadequate" hospitality.
I tried to convey my deep sympathy to her husband. "You seem like a couple of dear children," I said, "just eager to make us all happy."
"Every Turk," he replied gravely, "must marry young. The country needs children."
M. Kemal Pasha entirely confirmed the curious impressions that this household could not fail to produce on any visitor from Europe. It almost made one think of Turkey as the social Antipodes. In England so many women are now doing men's work, in addition to their own. Here we see men working for both sexes. I have no doubt the sweet little lady had "prepared" everything in advance, but when we arrived, she felt it becoming to disappear! It was our host, again, whom I had surprised in the midst of his ministrations for a most excellent lunch!
The afternoon was spent in driving about the pillaged city, visiting our host's carpet-factory and a number of weaving-looms in private houses. It is a privilege, indeed, to see all these treasures of beauty shaping before one's eyes. It must, I think, be a great relief for the "tired in mind" to "get busy" about mechanical work. One's fingers soon turn into machines, weaving the wool in and out of the frame, cutting the pile, the whole process of creating those wonderful Eastern "floorings" we all admire. The making of even "high art" goods must rest the
